


Home Sweet

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Perry Mason (TV 2020)
Genre: M/M, Post Season 1, my favorite kind, sappy bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: The life he thought he was leading, the future he imagined and was expecting, suddenly has a big black hole in the middle of it. It could go any direction from here. There’s a big unknown now, and it’s shaped like Pete showing up at his door holding a bag.
Relationships: Hazel Prystock/Della Street, Perry Mason/Pete Strickland
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Home Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> kindof a sequel to "On the Same Side" but I don't think it's necessary to read first really

There’s a knock, just as Della steps over to the phone to dial up Hazel and have her come over and join them. 

They won their case, and it was one hell of a win. The look on Burger’s face when Bradford Lawrence confessed on the stand! Now that’s something Perry will never forget. And Pete’s face too, sitting next to Burger at the prosecution table— his legs crossed at the knee, leaning back. His expression flickering through being shocked and pleased and proud and annoyed, and in the end trying to squash a smile even as Burger shook off his surprise and started halfheartedly sputtering objections. It had been quite a bit of courtroom theatrics that got them there, but boy did it pay off. 

So Perry and Paul and Della had retreated to Perry’s apartment for a drink. Or two or three. It had turned into a little party, which was why Della had gone to ring Hazel and have her join. 

And then the knock. 

Perry, laughing from something Paul said, shushes the room as he goes to the door. It could be an annoyed neighbor or even a policeman. It’s not like they’re expecting anyone; Della still has her ear to the phone. She glances at him. He nods the go ahead and as affably as possible opens the door. 

It’s Pete Strickland standing on the other side, looking sour and glum. He’s holding a bag. Not a suitcase but not a briefcase either. Something bigger than a weekender. A carpet bag. Perry has to force himself to look away from it. Why does he have it? What is it for?

“Pete, hi, I wasn’t—“ 

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I didn’t realize—“ He turns like he’s going to leave and Perry grabs him by the sleeve.

“Hey, no, come on. Come on in, join us. We’re all friends here.”

Pete doesn’t move. He looks anxious about it, and maybe it’s that bag in his hands. Perry steps into the hall and half closes the door behind him to give them a little privacy. He shifts his hand so he’s holding Pete’s bicep, in what he’s hoping is a tender way. 

They’ve got a good thing going these days. They see each other in court and occasionally out on a case, Pete sidling up, grinning, always saying, “ _I should’ve known I’d find you here._ ” They snap and tease, and Perry pushes right up to the line of the law and Pete threatens to get him disbarred. And then Pete shows up at Perry’s office or Perry meets him somewhere two or three times a week, and they have dinner or drinks or catch a movie and they retire to Perry’s and it’s all good. It’s better than it ever was before. Everything in balance— their work, their relationship. They just enjoy each other’s company. Pete loves him and prods him and points out the spots he misses when he’s shaving. Pete reads to him in bed and Perry traces the freckles on his shoulders. Pete kisses his ears and Perry has just learned all of Pete’s ticklish spots. They only talk about cases once they’re over and they’re able to laugh about their tete-a-tete’s in cross examination (instead of wanting to bite each other's heads off, which is usually how it feels _during_ cross examination).

And now Pete is standing in the hall looking sheepish and angry and embarrassed all at once. 

"I didn't know you had guests."

“It's just Della and Paul," Perry says dismissively. It doesn't alleviate any of that funny tension sitting around them. "Pete, what’s going on?” 

“Ruth kicked me out.” He stops, screws his face up, tries again. “She asked me to leave.” 

“Christ,” Perry says, genuinely taken aback. Ruthie’s done this before— or walked out on Pete— but not in years. And it’s never stuck. 

“She really means it this time.” 

“Why do you say that?” Pete tips his head like he’s been pulled on a fish hook. Wry. He lifts the bag. Ruth’s never sent him away with a bag before, that’s true. But still. “Pete, I don’t get it.” 

Very low, barely a whisper, Pete says, “She knows.” 

Perry blinks, unable to process what Pete’s saying. “About?” 

Pete looks up from under his eyebrows. “About us. She figured it. And... she asked me to go.” 

Perry gawps. He feels suddenly pretty numb. This could be his whole life, his whole career, Pete’s whole life... up in flames. Depending on what one woman who lives out in the hills decides to do. His head is spinning and maybe Pete can see it on his face. Or maybe feel it in the hand still squeezing his arm. 

“Perry, she won’t do anything. It’s Ruth, come on. She’s okay. It’s okay. She just wanted some space is all.” 

Pete and his wife’s relationship has always been a mystery to Perry. She’s put up with so much from him and has barely ever complained. And now she’s showing him the door after years and years of it. It’s something Perry can’t, and never has been able to, wrap his head around. 

Pete’s been flirting with coat check girls and fucking waitresses and staying out all night for years, and during all that time Ruthie never seemed to care much. The things that made her storm out were always complaints about money, or about Pete not being helpful with the kids, or there was the time he got arrested and was in lockup for two days which she was pretty sore about. It was almost never about his fooling around. That didn’t seem to bother her much. And in the end, Ruth always softened and welcomed him back pretty quickly. It was always more of a show than anything else. And now, what? Because it’s not just some girl in a coat room, but some man in a bedroom? Or because… because it’s Perry in particular? 

Pete wavers in the face of Perry’s brain-spinning silence. “She’s got… her own life too, you know? She wants to live it.”

“So… Okay, so?” 

Pete shifts his weight, shrugs. He still looks nervous. Like Perry’s going to send him away too, maybe. “So I left like she asked.”

“But why the bag this time? What’s different?” 

No matter what he and Pete have been up to lately, playing house in the evenings and mornings and whatever else, Perry never really thought that anything substantial would change-- not in the grand scheme. Pete would always have to go home eventually, to his wife and kids and the house in North Hollywood. No matter what had changed over the past year, and plenty had, that had seemed written in stone. But it wasn’t, as it turns out. 

“I think she’s done pretending. No point in it anymore. Took a long time, but she’s right.”

He smiles, almost. A delicate, flickering, fleeting thing. Inside Perry’s apartment, there’s a trickle of laughter. Dellas higher laugh, Paul’s low chuckle. 

Perry takes a deep, slow breath. The life he thought he was leading, the future he imagined and was expecting, suddenly has a big black hole in the middle of it. It could go any direction from here. There’s a big unknown now, and it’s shaped like Pete showing up at his door holding a bag.

Pete watches him patiently, trying to read him, then slowly says, “I shouldn't have just shown up. The timing’s bad. You’ve got guests. I’ll go. I'm not here to put you out.” 

It’s so formal and stilted, it’s tragic. Perry tries a smile to lighten things up. “No it’s… it’s okay. It’s good. I’m glad you’re here.” He takes Pete’s bag from him and let’s his fingers mingle with Pete’s as he does it. He hopes it’s comforting. He feels awkward doing it, like he’s doing it wrong. “Come on in. Let me get you a drink.” 

Pete shoulders slump and he nods with exhaustion. Perry can’t imagine what the conversation with Ruth must have been like, how stressful, how tense, even if it turned out alright. And then coming here, not fully knowing what Perry would say. He must have known, really, that Perry wouldn’t turn him away. But Pete’s also never been entirely sure about this new version of their relationship. It’s still new and tenuous and unsure for him. They’re still figuring out the rules and boundaries.

Perry puts an arm around Pete’s shoulders and they go into the apartment. 

Paul and Della are smiling. 

“Mr. Strickland!” Paul grins. “What a pleasant surprise.” He almost sounds like he means it. Maybe he does.

Perry drops Pete’s bag by the door and the two of them join the little party. Paul half stands to shake Pete’s hand. 

“Did Hamilton like our little show today, Pete?” Della says slyly from her perch on the arm of the sofa. 

Pete’s dour look takes on a sly enjoyment. A slight smile forms. “Oh, he loved it.” Spotting the whiskey bottle on the table, Pete saunters over and pours himself a glass. “But I don’t think he wants to be invited to any encore performances.” 

Paul laughs first, bursting out in big, boisterous belly laughs. Perry breaks out next, caught up in how much lighter Paul has become since leaving the police and joining their little team. How charming and buoyant he is these days. He and Perry have had some very nice lunches together recently. They’re becoming good friends. Seeing him smiling is enough to lift Perry’s spirits anytime. And seeing him and Pete and Della all together… that’s quite something. 

Della cracks too, falling into giggles that leave her bent over in half. 

Pete grins at his own joke and at Paul and Della and Perry’s reaction to it, and hides behind sipping his whiskey. 

It’s a good night— Hazel shows up about half an hour later with half a cake stolen from the boarding house kitchen. She cuts everyone slices and sits on Pete’s lap to eat hers. The two of them whisper conspiratorially and laugh together, which both Della and Perry watch with some suspicion. It’s harmless of course but… still. Who knew the two of them had gotten so chummy? 

Paul leaves just before midnight, claiming the excuse of his wife and baby, which is fair enough. 

He pinches Della on the arm as he goes out. “See ya, beautiful.”

“Bye, Paul.” 

The door closes with a click and Hazel glides off Pete’s lap and just as smoothly settles on to Della’s lap where she sits on the sofa. 

“What’s his wife like?” 

“Haven't met her yet,” Della says. Already she’s playing with Hazel’s hair. “I’m sure she’s great.”

“We should have a big dinner party, all together. Stricks, your wife could come. I want to meet her too.” 

Pete’s jaw goes tight. “I don’t think that’ll happen.” 

“Aw, why? It’d be fun.”

Pete finishes his drink in one swallow and clears his throat. “I think we’re... splitting up, actually.” 

The momentum of the party plunges headfirst into a ditch. Perry busies himself with taking glasses into the kitchen. Hazel, ever positive, remains smiling through the awkwardness. 

She glances to Della, whose eyebrows go sympathetic. “Gosh, that’s too bad.” 

Pete shrugs. 

Perry stands in the doorway to the kitchen and surveys the room. Hazel and Della curled up together, cozy and intimate. Pete off by himself in an armchair, looking tired and pale and clenching his jaw.

Pete catches Perry's eyes quickly and then looks away. “Long time coming, probably.” He balances his glass on the arm of his chair and twists it around. 

“Sorry to hear that, Pete,” Della says. She knows what he and Perry have been doing; Perry couldn’t help but tell her. So now she’s watching him very carefully, like there’s something to discover. Like she’s looking for regret or resentment or some other dark, ugly emotion… or maybe even relief. When she only finds something tired and drained, she turns her head to look at Perry.

Perry can imagine a different world where he goes over to Pete and puts his arms around him and is a comfort, a real, physical, unembarrassed comfort. He wants to do that, and more, but isn’t sure what Pete’s comfortable with in front of Della and Hazel— no matter that they’re up to the same thing and would understand. No matter that Hazel is sitting in Della’s lap and Della has a hand on her thigh. He’d like to do that. Would like to be that comfortable. But they’re not the type of men who would cozy up like Della and Hazel are cozied up anyway. It’s not an intimacy Perry can quite imagine for them. Sure, Perry wants to show everyone, including Pete, that everything is fine. That losing his marriage won’t leave Pete alone. But he can’t figure how to do it. Even when they’re on their own there’s still a hesitancy between them. A nervousness. It’s not just Pete, either. They both get tight about it, unsure and awkward. They move slow. Now, Perry doesn’t want to make anything worse by trying to make it better. 

Pete gives a heavy, shaking sigh and slouches down in his seat. He turns his head to stare at the view out Perry’s windows, pointedly finishing the conversation. 

Perry avoids Della’s eyes. His face is hot. She’s not judging him, he doesn’t think. Isn’t chiding him with her eyes for not making a gesture, or doing something. But even her glance, her flat, thoughtful glance, makes him feel guilty. The least he could do is go over there, stand at Pete’s shoulder and let him know he’s got someone in his corner. If only his feet didn’t feel glued to the floor. 

Hazel titters into Della’s ear and Della visibly crushes down a smile. Talking about them, maybe, about silly Perry and silly Pete who don’t know how to date even though they’re sleeping together and spend more nights together than apart, and who love each other and have said so, and so shouldn’t find it quite so difficult to act like it. How silly they are, she’s probably whispering, these silly boys who make it so hard for themselves when we make it so easy, and when it should be easy. 

Perry leans against the door frame and thinks she’s probably right. If that is what she’s saying. 

After a minute, actually, it looks more like Hazel has started to whisper dirty nothings into Della’s ear, instead of light gossip. One whisper too many and Della squirms.

“Okay, Hazel,” Della says in a hurry, sweeping Hazel up to her feet and standing herself, her face red. “I’m ready to head home. Let’s leave the boys to their night.” 

Hazel says, all syrup, “You got it, sweets.” 

They collect their things and Hazel gives Pete a goodbye kiss on the cheek. 

“You’re gonna be okay, right Petey?” 

“Yeah,” he says, glancing over to Perry, who is helping Della with her coat. “Guess so.” 

“Good for you. Good for both of you.” She pats his hand. Of course she knows too, about him and Perry. It would be too much to expect Della not to tell her. “Maybe it’s all for the best, huh?”

He rolls his eyes. “Okay, okay, off you go.” 

And off the girls do go, out the door. Perry steps out just to see them to the elevator, which he considers the gentlemanly thing to do. 

“You be nice to him, Perry,” Hazel says, jabbing him in the shoulder with one gloved finger. “Do him something really special.” 

Perry’s eyebrows go up and Della chides her, though she’s laughing a little too. “Goodnight, Perry. Please forgive her, she’s young.” 

Hazel tosses her hair and puts on a pout. 

“I just didn’t know you and Pete were such good friends.”

“Somebody’s gotta look out for him,” Hazel sniffs, like it’s very obvious. She takes Della’s arm. “He’s such a sweetheart, really.” 

“I know, Hazel. Goodnight. Drive safe.”

Della waves and the pair of them toddle arm in arm down the hall and into the elevator. 

She is a pip, like Della said. That’s for sure. Hazel has a chipper lightness that’s infectious. Maybe it shouldn’t be any kind of surprise that she and Pete are so friendly together. They’re the same, actually, in lots of ways. Pete was always the positive light in Perry’s dark life— always finding the bright side and trying to cheer him up with stories and movies and jokes, even when Perry hated him for it. He found the pleasure in life that Perry had a hard time seeing. Hazel was the same. The precarious danger of their situation rarely worried her. She just lived her life, one happy day at a time, and slipped into Della’s bed at night. 

God bless her. 

Perry takes a deep breath and steps back into his apartment, closing the door and throwing the deadbolt. For the briefest of moments, he presses his forehead to the cool wood of the door. After hours of laughter and chatter and noise, his apartment is quiet again. The noise from the street, six floors down, barely whispers in. 

Pete hasn’t moved from his armchair across the room. He’s still staring out the window, chewing at the inside of his cheek. 

Perry collects Pete’s bag. It’s heavy. 

“You okay over there?” Pete shrugs and doesn’t move. He stops chewing on his cheek and starts chewing on his fingers. “Come here, huh? Come on.”

Pete hesitates, then heaves himself up out of his chair and shuffles over to where Perry is standing near the door. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stands with his feet apart. Perry puts an arm around him. His shoulders are tight and Perry drops the bag to embrace him with both arms. “Hey,” he says into Pete’s hair. “It’s all okay.”

“I know,” Pete says, muffled against Perry’s shoulder.

“You don’t… regret any of it, do you?”

In a way he didn’t think was possible, Pete’s shoulders get tighter. But he doesn’t pull away. 

“Any of what?”

Perry lets his hands wander, roaming across Pete’s shoulders and down his arms and back up. 

“I don’t know… This. Us. Whatever the final straw with Ruthie was.” 

Pete grunts but it’s not a clear yes or no. So Perry just holds him, an arm around his back, settling a hand on his jaw, his neck. Just lets Pete rest for a moment against him. His breath is warm where it slips down Perry’s collar. Slowly, slowly his shoulders start to relax. 

“Hey,” Perry says. “It’s been a helluva day, huh? Let’s go to bed.”

And Pete nods, and Perry feels it against his cheek. He keeps his arm around Pete’s shoulders and they head down the hall. The bag remains by the door.

—

In the morning Perry leaves Pete sleeping and slips out of bed. He collects Pete’s bag and makes some room in his closet and sets about putting away Pete’s things. He has an idea that Pete should wake up feeling welcomed and at home. Not like a temporary guest. 

They’d fallen asleep staring at each other. There hadn’t been any quiet, whispered promises or declarations, or even a discussion of _how long_ or _do you want to_. They had just quietly undressed and Perry had put on pajamas and Pete had stayed in his undershirt, and they had gotten into Perry’s big plush bed. They’ve done a fair amount of tumbling into bed, but this purposeful pulling back of the blankets is new and awkward and strange— but, Perry thinks, not unwelcome. It’s a kind of intimacy he can imagine easily, and do pretty easily too. It’s nice, actually. 

Hazel’s suggestion that Perry _do him something special_ floats through his mind, but Pete’s expression is miserable again so Perry doesn’t try to start anything. He doesn’t quite know what _something special_ would even be, anyway. There’s a feeling that he should say something, and Perry even keeps opening his mouth to start, but nothing ever comes out.

He brushes his fingers over the scar on Pete’s cheekbone (fading nicely), and they stare at each other’s silhouettes in the dark until suddenly Perry had woken up and it was morning. 

He’s woken up to Pete in his bed before. Even before they were like this— even back at the farmhouse sometimes, after particularly messy nights. Sometimes even then he’d wake up to Pete asleep in the bed next to him, crammed in against the wall, half dressed and very rumpled. 

What he’s never done is hung up Pete’s clothes for him. Or hung anyone else’s clothes in his own closet. 

It’s not much. Three jackets (brown, plaid, green— the blue pinstripe that Perry had once so admired having seen its last days on the dusty side of a road and then in a hospital bin). Three pair trousers (brown, black, gray). Five shirts (two white, one a pale blue, one gray with light white stripes, one white with little yellow dots, sunbursts nearly, that are so delicately worked into the fabric Perry lingers over it, running his fingers over the little pinpoints on the collars and cuffs). Nine ties (a whole variety of blue, brown, red, striped, tartan, geometric pin dots… and one rather glamorous silver tie that Perry almost remembers from a New Years party). One tan vest and one black, rolled up together. Undergarments and socks. A black leather bag of minor toiletries— a toothbrush, a quite nice straight razor. Not a safety like Perry uses. At the bottom of the bag are a few books and notebooks, a belt, a spare pair of suspenders, some odds and ends— and a pair of carefully tended oxford shoes.

Aside from the gray suit he came in, which is folded crisply over the back of a chair, and the boots tucked by the door, that’s it. That’s all Pete has. The gray suit was a very new addition, and Pete had shown it off quite proudly about a month before. “ _For court_ ,” he’d said, grinning. 

Perry Mason tries to remember if he’d ever seen Pete in clothes other than the sparse selection now hanging before him in his very own closet. He can’t, not recently anyway. His memory is pretty good too. It occurs that Pete really has been making the best of a very limited wardrobe for a very long time. Times had been hard, indeed.

But now, times are better. The job with Burger had to pay enough for a few things— the suit, the oxfords. And now, Perry supposes, it’ll pay for child support.

He looks over to Pete in the bed and feels… not quite sadness, but something near to that. Sadness that Pete has had to struggle for so long. Sadness that Perry didn’t do more to make things easier along the way.

When they were working together, Perry pissed off clients and shunned paychecks and made all kinds of trouble that made their lives harder. No wonder Pete got sick of his shit eventually.

He’s here now, though, laying with his head tilted to one shoulder, which gives him a little double chin that Perry takes as a promising sign of gained weight. When they’d first met, Pete had been very sturdily built. He’d thinned out a lot after the crash in ‘29— so had Perry for that matter— but times had turned around and they were both padding back up. 

Times were good. They would be good. 

Perry puts the bag itself deep into the back of the closet. 

Pete shifts, slowly starting to wake up. He stretches, twisting his back, extending his arms. He digs at his eyes with fingers and knuckles and the heel of a hand. Perry watches him blindly reach for the far side of the bed. He pats at the empty pillow, then his eyes pry open one at a time. 

“You’re up?” he grunts.

“I am.” Perry returns to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Why?”

Perry points to the closet, trying to be casual about it. “Put your things away. Haven’t made coffee yet, sorry.” 

Pete blinks at him, drowsy but waking up. His forehead furrows. 

“You put my things away?” 

“Your clothes and… you know, I unpacked. Is that really all your clothes?” 

Pete blinks. “Yeah. Pretty much. You unpacked?” 

“Yeah, I— That’s okay, right? I figured… I figured you were staying. That you’d stay here. So.” Pete doesn’t say anything. A little anxiety creeps up Perry’s throat. “Did I fuck up here?”

Propping himself up on his elbows, Pete squints at him. He’s still a little pinked from sleep. His hair is ruffled and his eyes are red. His mouth twitches.

“You want me to stay?” 

“Isn’t that why you came? I mean, Pete, of course. Haven’t…. haven’t I said it? How— how many times do I have to say that I want you here?” He leans forward over the bed, reaching to paw at Pete’s leg. “Come on, Pete. Obviously I want you to stay.” 

Pete’s face cracks into a grin. 

“You know what the final straw was, with Ruthie?” 

Perry smiles and waits. 

“It was that this,” he gestures between them, “was more than just fooling around.” 

“This?” 

Pete nods and gives a nonchalant little shrug, and somehow that encompasses everything. Their ten years of friendship and all the casual intimacies that brings with it. How Pete knows instinctively when Perry is about to throw a punch, how Perry knows when Pete is drunk enough to vomit. Pete’s pulp paperbacks left on Perry’s bed stand. Late nights at the farmhouse, early mornings in diners, late nights at Perry’s new apartment, early mornings in Perry’s plush bed. Late lunches in Pete’s tucked away little office at the DA’s, flipping through the newspaper for the movie ads with screening times listed. How easily they’ve fallen into a habit in the bathroom in the morning, shaving and brushing teeth and moving around each other. Pete borrowing Perry’s shirts and ties so he doesn’t show up to work in the same clothes as yesterday.

Certainly though, Perry thinks, at least their good pal Hamilton Burger must have noticed that he and Pete seem to own an awful lot of the same ties these days. 

And then there’s the way Pete looks at him across a courtroom, proud and challenging and frustrated and affectionate. The way he looks at him in bed, dreamy and needy and raw and brimming with so much that Perry can’t name, but all of it is for him. It’s a look he’s gotten to know decently well, and if he was really pressed, if he really had to declare what it was, he might call it love. 

More than just fooling around. No kidding.

Perry nods back, and hopes it communicates everything he meant when he put Pete’s clothes in his closet. A promise. _If you stayed forever it’d suit me._

Perry crawls back into bed, caging in Pete’s hips with his hands. _More than fooling around, yeah, but also a little fooling around_ , he thinks as Pete’s fingers very lightly take hold of the lapel of his pajamas. The fooling around is good stuff, definitely, and they’re getting better at it with each try. But the More… the more is what you fill the gaps in your life with. The More is the really great stuff. 

Perry takes a moment to taste Pete’s tight and bashful smile. Pete says, “She’s smart, you know. She could see it on my face. Probably knew before I did.” 

“That seems to be a pretty common occurrence for us.” 

“Guess so. We’re catching up though.” 

“I’d say.” 

Perry kisses him in a lazy morning kind of way, slow and thoroughly. Pete slips an arm around his neck and pulls them back down into the pillows, seemingly perfectly happy to waste the day that way. Perry breaks to catch his breath and catches a glimpse, just a _glimpse_ , of that remarkable, amazing, precious _look_. Maybe it comes from being too close, so Pete is a little cross-eyed looking at him. But Perry knows better. It’s just Pete, looking at him like he’s the only thing in the world worth looking at. Soft and dreamy, the morning light catching in his eyelashes. 

“I can see it on your face too,” Perry sighs. “When you look like this.” 

“Don't be a sap.”

“You love it. Do you want some coffee?” 

“Okay.” 

“You live here now,” Perry teases, feeling his smile turn playful. “You can make it yourself.” 

“Aw, fuck you.” 

“You wish.” 

Working his jaw, hiding a smile, Pete pulls him back close to kiss him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I said I would not be stopped and I will not!!!!!! sorry but these two live in my brain rent free 
> 
> i will neither confirm nor deny that I rewatched the whole season to make that list of pete's clothes.


End file.
